CHAPTER XIV
MOVING A SHACK
Less than a week had passed since Bostwick's arrival in Goldite, butexcitement was rife in the air. Despite the angered protests of half athousand mining men, the Easterner, with four of the shrewdestprospectors in the State, had traversed the entire mineral region ofthe reservation in the utmost security and assurance. Five hundred menhad been forced to remain at the border, at the points of officialguns. A few desperate adventurers had crept through the guard, butnearly all were presently captured and ejected from the place, whileBostwick--granted special privileges--was assuming this inside track.
The day for the opening of the lands was less than two weeks off--andthe news leaked out and spread like a wind that the "Laughing Water"claim had suddenly promised amazing wealth as a placer where Van andhis partners were taking out the gold by the simplest, most primitiveof methods.
The rush for the region came like a stampede of cattle. An army of menwent swarming over the ridges and overran the country like a plague ofants. They trooped across the border of the reservation, so close tothe "Laughing Water" claim, they staked out all the visible world,above, below, and all about Van's property, they tore down each others'monuments, including a number where Van had located new, protectiveclaims, and they builded a tent town over night, not a mile from hisfirst discovery.
At the claim in the cove the fortunate holders of a private treasury ofgold had lost no time. In the absence of better lumber, for which theyhad no money, Van and his partners had torn down the shaft-house, madeit into sluices, and turned in the water from the stream. That was allthe plant required. They had then commenced to shovel the gravel intothe trough-like boxes, and the gold had begun to lodge behind theriffles.
The cove became a theatre of curiosity, envy, and covetous longings.Men came there by motor, on horses, mules, and on foot to take onedelirious look and rush madly about to improve what chances stillremained. The fame of it swept like prairie fire, far and wide. Thenew-made town began at once to spread and encroach upon all who werecareless of their holdings. Lawlessness was rampant.
At the cabin on the "Laughing Water" claim Algy, the Chinese cook, wasstill disabled. Gettysburg was chief culinary artist. Napoleonhustled for grub, the only supplies of which were over at Goldite--andexpensive. All were constantly exhausted with the labors of the day.
Despite their vigilance they awoke one morning to see a brand-new cabinstanding on the claim, at the top of a hill. A man was on the roughpine roof, rapidly laying weather paper. Van beheld him, watched himfor a moment, then quietly walked over to the site.
"Say, friend," he called to the man on the roof, "you've broken intoEden by mistake. This property is mine and I haven't any building lotsto sell."
The visiting builder took out a huge revolver and laid it on a block.He said nothing at all. Van felt his impatience rising.
"I'm talking to you, Mr. Carpenter," he added. "Come on, now, I don'twant any trouble with neighbors, but this cabin will have to beremoved."
"Go to hell!" said the builder. He continued to pound in his nails.
"If I go," said Van calmly, "I'll bring a little back. Are you goingto move or be moved?"
"Don't talk to me, I'm busy," answered the intruder. "I'm an irritableman, and everything I own is irritable, understand?" And taking up hisgun he thumped with it briskly on the boards.
"If you're looking for trouble," Van replied, "you won't need adouble-barreled glass."
He turned away and the man continued operations. When he came to theshack Van selected a hammer and a couple of drills from among a lot oftools in the corner.
To his partner's questions as to what the visitor intended he repliedthat only time could tell.
"Here, Nap," he added, fetching forth the tools, "I want you to takethis junk and go up there where the neighbor is working. Just sit downquietly and drill three shallow holes and don't say a word to yonderbusy bee. If he asks you what's doing, play possum--and don't make theholes too deep."
Napoleon went off as directed. His blows could presently be heard ashe drilled in a porphyry dike.
His advent puzzled the man intent on building.
"Say, you," said he, "what's on your programme?"
Napoleon drilled and said nothing.
The carpenter watched him in some uneasiness.
"Say, you ain't starting a shaft?"
No answer.
"Ain't this a placer? Say, you, are you deef?"
Napoleon pounded on the steel.
"Go to hell!" said the builder, as he had before, "--a man that can'tanswer civil questions!"
He resumed his labors, pausing now and then to stare at Napoleon, in asteadily increasing dubiety of mind.
In something less than twenty minutes he had done very little roofing,owing to a nervousness he found it hard to banish, while Napoleon hadall but completed his holes. Then Van came leisurely strolling to theplace, comfortably loaded with dynamite, of which a man may carry much.
With utter indifference to the man on the roof he proceeded to chargethose shallow holes. As a matter of fact he overcharged them. He usedan exceptional amount of the harmless looking stuff, and laid a shortfuse to the cap. When he turned to the builder, who had watchedproceedings with a sickening alarm at his vitals, that industriousperson had taken on a heavy, leaden hue.
"You see I went where you told me," said Van, "and I've brought someback as I promised. This shot has got to go before breakfast--andbreakfast is just about ready."
"For God's sake give a man a chance," implored the man who hadtrespassed in the night. "I'll move the shack to-morrow."
"You won't have to," Van informed him, "but you'd better move your meatto-day."
He took out a match, scratched it with quiet deliberation and lightedthe end of the fuse.
"For God's sake--man!" cried the carpenter, and without even waiting toclimb from the roof he rolled to the edge in a panic, fell off on hisfeet, and ran as if all the fiends of Hades were fairly at his heels.
Van and Napoleon also moved away with becoming alacrity. Three minuteslater the charge went off. It sounded like the crack of doom. Itseemed to split the earth and very firmament. A huge black toadstoolof smoke rose up abruptly. Something like a blot of yellowish colorspattered all over the landscape. It was the shack.
It had moved. The smoke cloud drifted rapidly away. On the hill was agreat jagged hole, lined with rock, but there was nothing more. Thecabin was hung in lumber shreds on the stunted trees for hundreds offeet in all directions. With it went hammers, saws and a barrel ofnails whose usefulness was ended.
Gettysburg, aproned, and fresh from his labors at the stove, camehastening out of the cabin to where his partners stood, in greatdistress of mind.
"Holy toads, Van!" he said excitedly, "it must have been the shot!I've dropped an egg--and what in the world shall I do?"
"Cackle, man, cackle," Van answered him gravely. "That's a mighty rareoccurrence."
"And two-bits apiece!" almost wailed poor Gettysburg, diving back intothe cabin, "and only them four in the shack!"
That was also the day that Bostwick came out upon the scene. He camewith his prospectors, all the party somewhat disillusionized as to allthat fabled gold upon the Indian reservation.
Some word of the wealth of the "Laughing Water" claim had come toSearle early in the week. He did not visit the cabin or the owners ofthe cove. For fifteen minutes, however, he sat upon his horse andscanned the place in silence. Then out of his newly-acquired knowledgeof the boundaries of the reservation the hounds of his mind jumped up ahalf-mad plan. His cold eyes glittered as he looked across to whereVan and his partners were toiling. His lips were compressed in a smile.
He rode to Goldite hurriedly and sought out his friend McCoppet. Whenthe two were presently closeted together where their privacy wasassured, a conspiracy, diabolically insidious, was about to have itsbirth.